Welcome
to the research group of Dr. Jeff Pierce at
Colorado State University in Ft. Collins, Colorado, USA and Dalhousie University
in Halifax, NS, Canada.
Our research focuses on atmospheric particles and gases and their interactions with human health, clouds
and climate.

Specific areas of interest include:

(1) Aerosols and climate: Changes in atmospheric aerosols (airborne particles) due to
human-generated pollution affects the earth's climate by interacting with
the sun and earth's radiation and by modifying clouds. The extent to which
this increased aerosol concentration has affected climate is generally regarded
to be one of the most uncertain gaps in our understanding of
recent climate change.

(2) Near-source aerosol physics: The size and number of atmospheric
particles may be greatly influenced by processes near their sources,
such as in power plant plumes; however, these processes are currently ignored or
are only crudely accounted for in regional and global atmospheric models.

(3) New-particle formation and growth: A large portion of the number of
atmospheric particles were formed from gases in the atmosphere (rather
than being emitted from a source). The rate at which these particle
form and grow is very uncertain, yet must be better understood
in order to reduce uncertainties in the climate effects of aerosols.

(4) Particles and health: Atmospheric particles in the atmosphere lead to on the order of
3 million premature deaths ever year. Therefore, we must understand how best to reduce human
exposure to particles.

Credit Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC
This is a true-color photo from the MODIS instrument on NASA's Terra satellite
of the Pacific Ocean off of the coast of North America. The white
streaks in the thinner cloud portions are where aerosols from ship emissions
have changed the cloud properties, making them brighter. These interactions
have a large impact on climate!